{"id":844916,"date":"2026-09-27T05:20:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-27T05:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/844916\/"},"modified":"2026-09-27T05:20:00","modified_gmt":"2026-09-27T05:20:00","slug":"thunder-gm-sam-presti-provides-health-update-on-injured-players","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/844916\/","title":{"rendered":"Thunder GM Sam Presti Provides Health Update on Injured Players"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t<img width=\"780\" height=\"439\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/GettyImages-2255007448-e1790339800642.jpg\" class=\"attachment-featured-image size-featured-image wp-post-image\" alt=\"Sam Presti Thunder\"   decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\"\/>\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/heavy.com\/sports\/nba\/oklahoma-city-thunder\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a> general manager Sam Presti provided a health update on several of the basketball club\u2019s injured players.<\/p>\n<p>The Thunder are expected to once again be one of the NBA\u2019s elite teams this coming season, and they could be even better if their injured players come back to full health and help the team.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s what Presti said about the club\u2019s injured players ahead of the preseason during a sit-down with the media in Oklahoma City.<\/p>\n<p>Sam Presti Provides Update on Jalen Williams<\/p>\n<p>The big one for the Thunder is the health of star swingman <a class=\"wpil_keyword_link\" href=\"https:\/\/heavy.com\/nba\/player\/jalen-williams\/\" title=\"Jalen Williams\" data-wpil-keyword-link=\"linked\" data-wpil-monitor-id=\"487571\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jalen Williams<\/a>, who only played in 33 regular-season games and five postseason games for Oklahoma City last year due to injuries.<\/p>\n<p>Despite missing so much time last year due to injuries, Williams has been working hard this offseason to get back to full health, and Presti says he is looking great in training.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s worked extremely hard. He looks fantastic. He looks great. He\u2019s playing great. We\u2019re looking forward to him being himself again,\u201d Presti said (via <a href=\"http:\/\/oklahoman.com\/story\/sports\/nba\/thunder\/2026\/09\/24\/okc-thunder-sam-presti-nba-preseason-news-conference--live\/91919132007\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener external nofollow\">The Oklahoman<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>If the Thunder can get back a <a href=\"https:\/\/heavy.com\/sports\/nba\/oklahoma-city-thunder\/thunder-jalen-williams-instagram-fan-exchange-copy\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">healthy version of Williams this year<\/a>, it would absolutely provide the team the boost it needs to once again be an elite squad in the Western Conference, as Williams is one of the best players in the league when healthy.<\/p>\n<p>Health Updates for Nikola Topic &amp; Thomas Sorber<\/p>\n<p>The Thunder\u2019s two other injured players, Nikola Topic and <a class=\"wpil_keyword_link\" href=\"https:\/\/heavy.com\/nba\/player\/thomas-sorber\/\" title=\"Thomas Sorber\" data-wpil-keyword-link=\"linked\" data-wpil-monitor-id=\"487572\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Thomas Sorber<\/a>, however, are not returning to game action as fast as Williams, as both men have missed a lot of time due to various health ailments, and Presti wants to make sure that the team doesn\u2019t rush either of these players back too soon.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a much more complicated return-to-play program because it\u2019s not just from one injury. It\u2019s a big layoff where there hasn\u2019t been a lot of live play. So we\u2019re trying to figure out how to do that because it\u2019s almost like two years in both cases,\u201d Presti said.<\/p>\n<p>Hopefully, both Topic and Sorber return to full health, as they provide Oklahoma City with valuable depth off the bench.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/heavy.com\/author\/mmadammartin\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Adam Martin<\/a> Adam Martin is a sports journalist with over 15 years of experience. He has a speciality in MMA, while also covering the Big 4 Sports. Adam is currently a contributor to Heavy.com, with previous experience working for The Toronto Star, Sportsnet, theScore, Bookies, BJPenn.com, and MMAOddsbreaker.com. <a href=\"https:\/\/heavy.com\/author\/mmadammartin\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">More about Adam Martin<\/a>\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oklahoma City Thunder general manager Sam Presti provided a health update on several of the basketball club\u2019s injured&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":844917,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3783],"tags":[7,6,310,475,179,3966,3965,312],"class_list":["post-844916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oklahoma-city-thunder","tag-basketball","tag-nba","tag-oklahoma","tag-oklahoma-city","tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","tag-oklahomacity","tag-oklahomacitythunder","tag-thunder"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/117341325012974170","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=844916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844916\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/844917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=844916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=844916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=844916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}